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A. M. 2275. A. C. 1728; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3548. A. C. 1863. GEN. CH. xxxvii. TO THE END.

fore when, in the Old Testament, we find Job put in company with Noah and Daniel, and equally distinguished for his righteousness, as in the New he is commended for his patience, we cannot well suppose that the Spirit of God, in both these places, intended to delude us with a phantom, instead of presenting us with a real man.

Whether we allow that the book of Job is of divine revelation or not, we cannot but perceive, that it has in it all the lineaments of a real history; since the name, the quality, the country of the man, the number of his children, the bulk of his substance, and the pedigree of his friends, together with the names and situations of several regions, can give us the idea of nothing else; though it must not be dissembled, that in the introduction more especially, there is an allegorical turn given to some matters, which, as they relate to spiritual beings, would not otherwise so easily affect the imagination of the vulgar.

1 Job, according to the fairest probability, was in a direct line, a descended from Abraham, by his wife Keturah for by Keturah, the patriarch had several sons, whom he, being resolved to reserve the chief patrimony entire for Isaac, portioned out, as we call it, and sent them into the east to seek their fortunes, so that most of them settled in Arabia; and for this reason perhaps it is, that the author of his history records of Job, that before his calamities came upon him, he was the greatest of all the men of the east."

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The character which God himself gives of Abraham is this, I know him that, he will command his children, and his household after him, and that they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment;' which may well afford another argument for Job's being descended from the house of Abraham, since we find dispersed everywhere in his speeches, such noble sentiments of creation and providence, of the nature of angels and the fall of man, of punishments for sin and justification by grace, of a redemption, resurrection, and final judgment,-notions which he could never have struck out from the light of nature, but must have had

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'Spanheim's History of Job, c. 5. 9 Job, 1. 3. Gen. xviii. 19. 4 Spanheim's History of Job, c. 10. a At the end of the Greek, the Arabic, and Vulgate versions of Job, we have this account of his genealogy, which is said to have been taken from the ancient Syriac:-"Job dwelt in Ausitis, upon the confines of Idumea and Arabia. His name at first was Jobab. He married an Arabian woman, by whom he had a son called Ennon. For his part, he was the son of Zerah, of the posterity of Esau, and a native of Bozrah; so that he was the fifth from Abraham. He reigned in Edom, and the kings before him reigned in this order:-Balak, the son of Beor, in the city of Dinhabah; and after him, Job, otherwise called Jobab. Job was succeeded by Husham, prince of Teman; after him reigned Hadad, the son of Bedad, who defeated the Midianites in the field of Moab. Job's friends, who came to visit him, were Eliphaz, of the posterity of Esau, king of Teman; Bildad, king of the Shuhites; and Zophar, king of the Naamathites." According to this account, Job must be contemporary with Moses, and the three friends who came to see him must be kings. But the learned Spanheim, who has examined this matter to the bottom, finds reason to think, that Job was a distinct person from Jobab; was sprung from Abraham by his wife Keturah; and lived several years before the time of Moses.Calmet's Dictionary, on the word Job; and Spanheim's Life of him.

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them originally from the instruction of his parents, as they successively derived them from the first 'father of the faithful,' who had them immediately from God. But, what is an undoubted matter of fact, by his wife Keturah, Abraham had a son, whose name was Shuah; and therefore when we read of Bildad the Shuhite, we may well suppose, that he was a descendant from that family; who living in the neighbourhood perhaps, might think himself obliged by the ties of consanguinity, to go and visit his kinsman, in such sad circumstances of distress. In what part of the world the land of Uz lay, various opinions have been started, according to the several families from whence Job is made to descend; but, upon supposition that he sprung from one of Keturah's sons, his habitation is most properly placed in that part of Arabia Deserta which has to the north, Mesopotamia and the river Euphrates; to the west, Syria, Palestine, and Idumea; and to the south, the mountains of the Happy Arabia. And this description receives some farther confirmation from the mention which the history makes of the Chaldeans and Sabæans plundering his estate, who were certainly inhabitants in these parts.

In what age of the world this great exemplar of suffering lived, the difference of opinions is not small, even though there be some criterions to direct our judgment in this matter. That Job lived in the world much earlier than has been imagined, is, in some measure, evident from his mentioning with abhorrence, that ancient kind of idolatry, the adoration of the sun and moon, and yet passing by in silence the Egyptian bondage, which, upon one occasion or other, could have hardly escaped the notice either of him or his friends, had it not been subsequent to their times. That he lived in the days of the patriarchs therefore is very probable, from the long duration of his life, which, continuing an hundred and forty years after his restoration, could hardly be less in all than two hundred; a longer period than either Abraham or Isaac reached. That he lived before the law, may be gathered from his making not so much as one allusion to it through the whole course of his life, and from his offering, even with God's order and acceptance, such sacrifices in his own country as were not allowable after the promulgation of the law, to be offered in any other place, but that which the Lord had chosen in one of the tribes of Israel;' and that he lived after Jacob may be inferred from the character given him by God, namely, that for uprightness and the fear of God, there was none 'like unto him upon the earth,' which large commendation could not be allowed to any whilst Jacob, God's favourite servant, was alive; nor can we suppose it proper to be given to any, even while Joseph lived, who, in moral virtues and other excellencies, made as bright a figure as any in his time.

5 Gen. xxv. 2.

6 Job ii. 11. 7 Spanheim, c. 3. 8 Deut. xii. 13, 14.

The Rev. Dr Hales, from a variety of historical and astronomical deductions, calculates the time of Job's trial as happening B. C. 2337, or 818 years after the deluge, 184 years before the birth of Abraham, 474 years before the settlement of Jacob's family in Egypt, and 689 years before their departure from that country. Taking this view of the era of Job-and it is the best supported of any yet advanced-the deduction in the text from the words, and there was none like unto him upon the earth,'

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A. M. 2276. A. C. 1728; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 3548. A. C. 1863. GEN. CH. xxxvii. TO THE END.
of the sarcasm, when they are told, that this distemper,
be it what it will, was not of Job's contraction, but of
Satan's infliction, not the effect or consequence of his
vice, but the means appointed for the trial of his virtue.
Their opinion, however, seems to be well founded, who
make this distemper of Job not one simple malady, but
a complication of many. For since the great enemy of
mankind, saving his life, had a full license to try his
patience to the uttermost, it is not to be questioned but
that he played all his batteries upon him; and accord-
ingly we may observe, that besides the blains pustulated
to afflict his body, the devil not only instigated his wife
to grieve his mind, but disturbed his imagination like-
wise to terrify his conscience. For when the holy man
complains, Thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest
me with visions,' the analogy of the history will not suf-
fer us to interpret, that God himself did inject these
affrightening dreams, but that the devil, to whose tempta-
tions he had submitted him, did raise gloomy thoughts,
and frame horrid and ghastly objects in his imagination,
thereby to urge him to melancholy and despair.

Thus may the computation be reduced to a very narrow
compass; and though it be extremely difficult to point
out the precise time, yet the general opinion is, that he
lived in the time of the children of Israel's bondage,
and therefore his birth is placed in the very same year
wherein Jacob went down into Egypt, and the beginning
of his trial in the year when Joseph died; though it
might probably be less liable to exception, if his birth
were set a little lower, much about the time of Jacob's
death; and then Joseph, who survived his father about
four and fifty years, will be dead about sixteen years,
at which time Job might justly deserve the extraordinary
character which God gave him, and have no man then
alive, in virtue and integrity, able to compare with him.
How considerable a figure Job made in the world,
both in temporal and spiritual blessings, the vastness of
his stock, which was the wealth of that age, consisting
of seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five
hundred yokes of oxen, and five hundred she-asses; the
largeness of his family, consisting of seven sons and
three daughters; and the excellency of the character
which God was pleased to give him, together with the
greatness of his sentiments, and the firmness and con-
stancy of his mind in all he suffered, are a sufficient
demonstration: and yet we see, that as soon as God
submitted him to the assaults of his spiritual enemy, what
a sad catastrophe did befall him. The Sabæans ran
away with his asses; the Chaldeans plundered him of
his camels; a fire from heaven consumed his sheep and
servants; a wind overwhelmed all his children; and
while the sense of these losses lay heavy upon his spirits,
his body was smitten with a sore disease, insomuch
that he who but a few hours before, was the greatest man
in the country, in whose presence the young men were
afraid to appear, and before whom the aged stood up,'
to whom princes paid the most awful reverence, and
whom nobles, in humble silence, admired; divested of
all honour, sits mourning on a bed of ashes, and instead
of royal apparel, has his flesh clothed,' as himself
expresses it, with worms and clods of earth,' and is all
overspread with sores and ulcers.

According to the symptoms which Job gives us of himself, his distemper seems to have been a leprosy, but a leprosy of a more malignant kind, as it always is in hot countries, than our climate, blessed be God, is acquainted with; and those who would have it to be a malady-of a more opprobrious name, lose all the sting

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that he must have lived after Jacob, because such "large commendation could not be allowed to any whilst Jacob, God's favourite servant, was alive," cannot hold, but must rather be applied to prove, that he lived before Jacob, or any of the patriarchs of Israel. It may be observed, however, that, according to scripture idiom, the passage may be construed to signify merely, that there was none like Job in the land of Uz. Among other reasons for assigning to Job the high antiquity given him by Dr Hales, may be mentioned the following: He is silent respecting the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which cities lay near Idumea, where the scene of his sufferings is laid. He lived to a patriarchal age, surviving his trial 140 years, while he must have been old when that took place. The manners and customs described correspond critically with all that is known of that early period. But, above all, the astronomical allusions of Job have enabled astronomers to determine his era (as given above) by calculating the precession of the equinoxes.-ED.

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How long this load of various calamity lay upon him, is nowhere mentioned in Scripture; and therefore since it is submitted to conjecture, they who, to magnify the sufferings, prolong the duration of them to a year, and, as some do, to seven, seem to be regardless of the tender mercies of the Lord; especially when there are some circumstances in the story, which certainly do countenance a much shorter time. The news of the misfortunes which attended his goods and family, came close upon the heels of one another, and we cannot suppose a long space before he was afflicted in his body. three friends seem to have been his near neighbours; and they came to visit him, as soon as they heard of the ill news, which usually flies apace. When they saw his misery, seven days they sat with him in silence; after this, they entered into a discourse with him, and at the end of this discourse, which could not well last above another week, God healed his sores before his friends who being men of eminence in their country, may be supposed to have business at home, as soon as this melancholy occasion was over) were parted from him.

3 Young's Sermons, vol. 2.

* Job vii. 11.

'Bedford's Scripture Chronology, b. 3. c. 4.

a Some of the Jewish doctors imagine, that Dinah, the daughter of Leah, was this wife of Job's; but this seems to be a mere

fiction. The moroseness and impiety of the woman, as well as

the place of her habitation, do no ways suit with Jacob's daughter; and therefore the more probable opinion is, that his wife was an Arabian by birth, and that though the words which we render curse God and die,' may equally bear a quite contrary signification, yet are they not here to be taken in the most favourable sense, because they drew from her meek and patient husband so severe an imprecation, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What! shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?' (Job ii. 10.)—Spanheim's History of Job, c. 6.

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Eliphaz, the Temanite, was the grandson of Esau, and son of Teman, who dwelt in a city of the same name in Idumea, not far from the confines of Arabia Deserta. Bildad, the Shuhite, was descended from Shuah, the son of Abraham and Keturah It is almost impossible to find out who Zophar the Naamathite was, though some will have him descended from Esau; but as for Elihu, who comes in afterwards, he was the grandson of Buz, the son of Nahor; lived in the southern parts of Mesopotamia; and upon the supposition of Job's being sprung from Abraham, was his distant relation.-Spanheim's Life of Job, c. 11.

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double to what he had before, and with the prolongation of his life, beyond the common extent of those times.

Now, since all this may be included in the space of aed his faith and piety, with a portion of earthly felicity, month, and a month may be thought time enough for God to have made trial of his faithful servant; when once such trial was made, we have reason to believe, that he would withdraw his heavy hand, because his character in Scripture is, that he doth not afflict willingly nor

grieve the children of men.'

The unaccountable greatness of Job's calamities had led his friends into a misconception of him, and made them surmise, that it must be the vindictive hand of God, either for some deep hypocrisy, or some secret enormity, that fell so heavy upon him; and therefore Eliphaz, in three orations, Bildad in as many, and Zophar in two, argue from common topics, that such afflictions as his could come from no hand but God's; and that it was inconsistent with his infinite justice to afflict without a cause, or punish without guilt; and thereupon charging Job with being either a grievous sinner, or a great hypocrite, they endeavoured by all means to extort a confession from him. But Job, conscious of his sincerity to God, and innocence to man, confidently maintains his integrity; and in speeches returned to every one of theirs, refutes their wicked suggestions, and reproves their injustice and want of charity; but always observes a submissive style and reverence when he comes to speak of God, of whose secret end, in permitting this trial to come upon him, being ignorant, he often begs a release from life, lest the continuance of his afflictions should drive him into impatience.

During these arguments between Job and his friends, there was present a young man, named Elihu, who having heard the debates on both sides, and disliking both their censoriousness, and Job's justification of himself, undertakes to convince them both, by arguments drawn from God's unlimited sovereignty and unsearchable wisdom, that it was not inconsistent with his justice to lay his afflictions upon the best and most righteous of the sons of men; and that therefore, when any such thing came upon them, their duty was to bear it without murmuring, and to acknowledge the divine goodness in every dispensation.

This is a brief analysis of the book of Job: and whoever looks into it with a little more attention, will soon perceive, that the author of it, whoever he was, ' has put in practice all the beauties of his art, to make the four persons, whom he brings upon the stage, keep up each his proper character, and maintain the opinions which they were engaged to defend; will soon perceive, that for its loftiness of style, and sublimeness of thoughts, for its liveliness and energy of expression, for the variety of its characters, the fineness of its descriptions, and the grandeur of its imagery, there is hardly such another composition to be found in all the records of antiquity, which has raised the curiosity of all ages to find out the person who might possibly be the author of it.

+ 'Oh that

Some have imagined, that as it has been no uncommon thing in all ages, for persons of distinction to write their own memoirs, Job himself, or some of his friends at least, who bore a part in the series of this history, might set about the inditing it, if not for any other reason, at least in compliance to his request. my words were now written, that they were printed in a book!' But though some family records may possibly be kept of events so remarkable as those that occur in Job's life, yet the poetical turn which is given to the latter part of the book more especially, seems to savour of a more modern composition than suits with the era wherein we suppose Job to have lived.

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Others therefore suppose, that the story of Job was at first a plain narrative, written in the Arabian tongue, but that Solomon, or some other poetical genius like him, gave it a dramatic cast; and in order to make the subject more moving, introduced a set of persons speaking alternately, and always in character. But though this was certainly the mode of writing then in vogue, yet how there came so much of the Arabian and Syrian dialect to creep into a book that was composed at a time when the Hebrew tongue was in its very height of perfection, we cannot conceive; nor can we be persuaded, but that, in

Job xix. 23.

'Universal History, b. 1. c. 7. perfectly cured, and restored to health again.-Calmet's Dictionary under the word Job.

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When every one had spoken what he thought proper, and there was now a general silence in the company, the Lord himself took up the matter, and out of a whirlwind directed his speech to Job; wherein with the highest St Jerome, in his preface to the book of Job, informs us, that amplifications, describing his omnipotence in the forma- the verse, in which it is chiefly composed, is heroic. From the tion and disposition of the works of the creation, he so beginning of the book, to the third chapter, he says, it is prose; effectually convinced him of his inability to understand &c., (chap. iii. 3.) unto these words, Wherefore I abhor mybut from Job's words, 'Let the day perish wherein I was born, the ways and designs of God, that with the profoundest self, and repent in dust and ashes,' (chap. xlii. 6.) the verses are humility he breaks out into this confession and acknow-hexameter, consisting of dactyls and spondees, like the Greek ledgment: 'Behold, 2 I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken, but I will not answer: yea twice, but I will proceed no farther.' This acknowledgment pleased God so well, that he declared himself in favour of Job against his injurious friends, and hereupon putting an end to his sufferings, cured him of all his grievances, and reward

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verses of Homer, and the Latin of Virgil. Marianus Victorius, in his note upon this passage of St Jerome, says, that he has examined the book of Job, and finds St Jerome's observation to be true. Only we must observe, that the several sentences directing us to the several speakers, such as these, Moreover, the Lord answered Job and said,' (chap. xl. 1.) Elihu also proceeded and said,' (chap. xxxvi. 1.) Elihu spake moreover and said,' (chap. xxxv. 1., &c.) are in prose and not in verse. St Jerome makes this farther remark, that the verses in the book of Job do not always consist of dactyls and spondees, but that other feet do frequently occur instead of them; that we often meet in them a word of four syllables, instead of a dactyl and spondce; and that the measure of the verses frequently dif fers in the number of the syllables of the several feet, but allowing two short syllables to be equal to one long, the sums of the measure of the verses are always the same.-Shuckford's Connection, vol. 2. b. 9.

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reading the whole, we taste an antiquity superior to that of David or Solomon's time. And yet, this notwithstanding, some have endeavoured to bring down the author of the book of Job to the times of the Babylonish captivity, and suppose the book to have been written for the consolation of the captives in distress. But if we suppose it written for the sake of the Jews, is it not strange, that in a discourse of such a kind, there should not be one single word of the law of Moses, nor so much as one distant allusion to any rite or ceremony of it, or to any of the forms of idolatry, for which the Jews suffered in the time of their captivity? The Jews, I say, certainly suffered for their iniquity; but the example of Job is the example of an innocent man, suffering for no demerit of his own. Now apply this to the Jews in their captivity, and the book contradicts all the prophets before, and at the time of their captivity, and seems to be calculated, as it were, to harden the Jews in their sufferings, and to reproach the providence of God for bringing them upon them. Without troubling ourselves therefore to examine, whether the conjectures of these, 2 who carry the date of this book even lower than the captivity, and impute it 3 to Ezra, that ready scribe in the law of Moses, as he is styled, have any good foundation to support them, we may sit down contented with what is the common, and as far as I can see, as probable an opinion as any, namely, that Moses, as soon as God put it in his heart to visit his people, either while he continued in Egypt, or while he lived in exile in Midian, either translated this book from Arabic, in which some suppose it was originally, or wrote it entirely by a divine inspiration for the support and consolation of his countrymen the Jews, groaning under the pressure of the Egyptian bondage; that by a proper example, he might represent the design of providence in afflicting them, and at the same time give them assurance of a release and restoration in due time.

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sink under our burdens, in their weight far disproportionate to those, which a man made of the same flesh and blood as we are, and supported by no other helps than are afforded us, without murmuring against God, without lessening his confidence in him, without impeaching his justice, and without desponding of his goodness, both patiently endured, and triumphantly overcame

SECT. V.

CHAP. I.-The sufferings of the Israelites, and the means of their Deliverance out of Egypt.

THE HISTORY.

Nor long after the death of Joseph, there happened a revolution in Egypt, and a new king, who had no knowledge of the great services which Joseph had done the crown, perceiving the vast increase of the Israelites, began to fear, that in case of an invasion, they possibly might side with the enemy, and depose him ; and therefore he called a council, wherein it was resolved, not only to impose heavy taxes upon the people, but to confine them likewise to the hard labour of bearing burdens, and digging clay, making bricks, and building strong cities

a The original words, sare massim, which we translate taskmasters, do properly signify tax-gatherers, and the burdens are afterwards mentioned as distinct things, under another name; so that the resolution in council was, both to lay heavy tributes upon them to impoverish, and heavy burdens to weaken them. Philo, in his life of Moses, tells us, that they were made to carry burdens above their strength, and to work night and day, that they were forced at the same time to be workers and servers both; that they were employed in brick-making, digging, and building; and that if any of them dropped down dead under their burdens, they were not suffered to be buried. Josephus in his Jewish Antiquities, (b. 2. c. 9.) tells us in like manner, This is what most of the Jews, and several Christian that they were compelled to learn several laborious trades, to writers have affirmed, and believed, concerning the book rivers into channels, and cast up dykes and banks to prevent build walls round cities, to dig trenches and ditches, to drain of Job; but the author from whom I have compiled a inundations. And not only so, but that they were likewise put great part of this dissertation, has by several arguments, upon the erection of fantastical pyramids, which were vast piles hardly surmountable, gone a great way to destroy the of building, raised by the kings of Egypt in testimony of their received opinion, and left nothing to depend on but this, when dead. Thus, by three several ways, the Egyptians endeasplendour and magnificence, and to be repositories of their bodies -That the writer of this book was a Jew, and assisted voured to bring the Israelites under; by exacting a tribute of therein by the Spirit of God; that it has always been them, to lessen their wealth; by laying heavy burdens upon esteemed of canonical authority; is fraught with excel-them, to weaken their bodies; and by preventing, by this means, lent instructions; and, above all, is singularly adapted as they imagined, their generating and increasing. to administer comfort in the day of adversity. Not to quit therefore this subject without an exhortation to this 5 Ye have heard of the patience of Job,' says purpose, the apostle, and have seen the end of the Lord: and, therefore," when we find our spirits begin to flag under the sense of any affliction, or bodily pain; when our patience begins to be tired with sufferings, which are greater than we can bear, and our trust in God to be shaken, because he pours down his judgments upon us; let us enliven our fainting courage, by setting before us such noble patterns as this; and let us be ashamed to

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The two cities here mentioned, namely, Pithom and Raamses, are said, in our translation, to be treasure-cities, but not places where the king reposited his riches, but rather his grain or corn; for such repositories seem to have been much in use among the Egyptians ever since the introduction of them by Joseph. Considering, however, the name and situation of these two cities, that Pithom, according to Sir John Marsham, was the same with Pelusium, the most ancient fortified place in Egypt, called by Ezekiel, (xxx. 15,) the strength of Egypt;' and by Suidas, long after him, the key of Egypt,' as being the inlet from Syria; and that Raamses, in all probability, was a frontier town which lay in the entrance of Egypt from Arabia, or some of the neighbouring countries; it seems hardly consistent with good policy to have granaries, or store cities in any other than the inland parts of a country; and therefore, as these were situated in the out parts of Egypt, it is much more likely that they were fortified places, surrounded with walls, and towers, and deep ditches, which would cost the Hebrews an infinite deal of labour in building, than that they were repositories, either for corn or treasure. Patrick's Commentary, and Wells' Geography of the Old Testament, vol. 2.

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for the king; thereby to impoverish their spirits, as well as wear out and enfeeble their bodies.

This resolution of council was soon put in execution, and task-masters accordingly set over the people, who should keep them to drudgery, and use them with cruelty, and do all they could, in short, to make their lives miserable; but such was the goodness of God to them, that the more they were oppressed, the a more they multiplied; insomuch that the king, finding that this expedient would not do, sent for two of the most eminent of their midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, and gave them strict charge, that whenever they were called to do their office to any Hebrew woman, they should privately strangle the child, if it was a male, and leave only the females alive. But they abhorring such a cruel and impious practice, had no regard to the king's command,

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& Commentators observe, that in this passage of Scripture, where Moses describes the vast increase of the Israelites, he employs a great variety of words in expressing it; and because the words he makes use of are six in all, some of the Hebrew expositors have thence concluded, that the women brought forth six children at a birth, Aristotle, indeed, in his history of animals, (b. 7. c. 4.) tells us that the country of Egypt, where the Hebrew women bred so plentifully, was so strangely prolific, that some of their women, at four times, brought twenty children. But without having recourse to such prodigious births as happened but seldom, we need but suppose, that the Israelites, both men and women, were very fruitful; that they began soon, and continued long in begetting; and then there will be no impossibility for 70 males, in the compass of 215 years, to have multiplied to the number specified, even at the rate of one child every year. For according to Simler's computation, 70 persons, if they beget a child every year, will, in 30 years' time, have above 2000 children; of which, admit that one third part only did come to procreate, in 30 years more, they will amount to 9000. The third of them will, in 30 years more, be multiplied to 55,000; and, according to this calculation, in 210 years, the whole amount will be at least 2,760,000. So that, if there was any thing miraculous or extraordinary in all this, it was, that they should be able to multiply at that rate, notwithstanding their hard labour and cruel bondage.-Patrick's Commentary, and Universal History, b. 1. c. 7.

& Josephus tells us, that there was a certain scribe, as they called him, a man of great credit for his predictions, who told the king, that there was a Hebrew child to be born about that time, who would be a scourge to the Egyptians, and advance the glory of his own nation, and if he lived to grow up, would be a man eminent for virtue and courage, and make his name famous to posterity; and that by the counsel and instigation of this scribe it was, that Pharaoh gave the midwives orders to put all the Hebrew male children to death.—Jewish Antiquities, b. 2. c. 9. e For this distinction in his barbarity the king might have several reasons. As, 1. To have destroyed the females with the males had been an unnecessary provocation and cruelty, because there was no fear of the women's joining to the king's enemies, and fighting against him.' 2. The daughters of Israel exceeded very much their own women in beauty, and all advantages of person; and therefore their project might be to have them preserved for the gratification of their lust. Philo tells us, that they were preserved to be married to the slaves of the Egyptian lords and gentry, that the children descended from them might bo slaves even by birth. But suppose they were married to freemen, they could have no children but such as would be half Egyptians, and in time be wholly ingrafted into that nation. But, 3. Admitting they married not at all, yet as the female sex, among the Hebrews, made a very considerable figure in Egypt for their sense and knowledge, the care of their families, and application to business, and for their skill and dexterity in many accomplishments that were much to be valued for the use and ornament of life, such as the distaff and the loom, dyeing, Fainting, embroidering, &c., such women as these would make excellent servants and domestics for the Egyptian ladies, who had no relish of spending their time any other way than in idleness and pleasure.-Bibliotheca Biblica in locum.

but saved male and female alike; and when the king sent for them, and reprimanded them for their disobedience, they had this answer in readiness:- That the Hebrew women being of a much stronger constitution than the Egyptian, were generally delivered before they came.

This was a piece of service not unacceptable to God, but to Pharaoh it seemed no more than a mere evasion; and therefore resolving upon a more effectual method to extirpate the Hebrews, he published an edict, wherein he commanded all their male children to be thrown into the river; and that they might be more subject to the inspection of his searchers, he built them houses, and obliged them to live in settled habitations. Some years before this edict, Amram, who was of the

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d It is generally supposed that the midwives, upon this occasion, told a lie; but there is no reason for such a supposition, though possibly they might conceal some part of the truth, which is not unlawful, but highly commendable, when it is to preserve the innocent; for many of the Hebrew women might be such as are here described, though not every one of them. The answer of the midwives therefore is so far from being a sneaking lie to save their lives, that it is a bold confession of their faith and piety, to the hazard of them, namely, that they saw so plain an evidence of the wonderful hand of God, in that extraordinary vigour in the travail of the women, that do what Pharaoh would, they durst not, would not, strive against it, because they would not strive against God.'-Lightfoot's Sermon on 2 Sam. xix. 29.

e The making the midwives houses,' is, by most interpreters, ascribed to God, and the thing is supposed to have been done in a metaphorical sense, that is, God gave them a numerous offspring or family, and a very lasting succession or posterity. For there are five things, say they, which go to complete the greatness or eminence of a family, as such; its largeness, its wealth, its honours, its power, and its duration. And therefore, since the midwives hazarded their own lives to save those of the Hebrew children, and to preserve the Israelites a numerous progeny and posterity, the God of Israel, in return, not only made their own lives long and prosperous, but gave them very numerous families, and an enduring posterity, in whom they might be said to live after death, even from generation to generation. But all this is a very forced construction, and what the original words will by no means bear. We should therefore rather think, these houses were built, not for the midwives but for the Israelites, and that it was not God, but Pharaoh, who built them. The case seems to be this:-Pharaoh had charged the midwives to kill the male children that were born of the Hebrew women; the midwives feared God, and omitted to do what the king had commanded them, pretending in excuse for their omission, that the Hebrew women were generally delivered before they could get to them. Pharaoh hereupon resolving to prevent their increase, gave charge to his people to have all the male children of the Hebrews thrown into the river; but his command could not be strictly executed, whilst the Israelites lived up and down the fields in tents, which was their ancient and customary way of living; for they would shift here and there, and lodge the women in childbed out of the way, to save their children. Pharaoh therefore built them houses, and obliged them to a more settled habitation, that the people whom he had set over them might know where to find every family, and to take an account of all the children that should be born. So that this was a very cunning contrivance of Pharaoh, in order to have his charge more strictly and effectually executed than it could otherwise have been done; and was a particular too remarkable not to be inserted in Moses' account of this affair. The only seeming difficulty is, to reconcile the words in the text to what has been here advanced; but this will be none at all, if the words be rightly translated, and the verses rightly distinguished in this manner:-Exod. i. 20. And God dwelt with the midwives, and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty, and this happened' (or was so, or came to pass,) because the midwives feared God.' Ver. 21, 22. 'And Pharaoh built them' (that is, the Israelites,) 'houses, and charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born, ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive'.Shuckford's Connection, vol. 2. b. 7

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